VietNamNet Bridge – Competent agencies, which took an extraordinary inspection tour to 12 enterprises, have found that the unlicensed software products illegally used there were worth VND7 billion.

The inspection tour to the 12 businesses, including 2 computer trade companies, was made by the inspectors from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and C50 Agency of the Ministry of Public Security within the frame of a program on supervising the compliance of the intellectual property law.

The two computer trade companies include the Hanoi Computer Company at No. 129-131 Le Thanh Nghi Street in Hanoi and the De Nhat Phan Khang Shopping Company Ltd at No. 431A Hoang Van Thu Street, Tan Binh district of HCM City.

At the former company, the inspectors examined the 16 operational computers, 45 CPUs and found 60 office software pieces, mostly Microsoft’s ones (Windows 7 and Microsoft Office), which were installed illegally in the CPUs to be sold to customers.

Similarly, at De Nhat Phan Khang, 86 unlicensed office software pieces of Microsoft, including Window XP, Office (2003, 2007) were found illegally installed in 49 computers.

Prior to that, the inter-ministerial inspection tours had been taken to 10 enterprises located in the big industrial zones in Hanoi, HCM City, Da Nang, Binh Duong and Long An. Only 2 enterprises were found as abiding by the laws, while the other 8 businesses were found as committing copyright infringement.

The inspectors tours examined 669 computers, 45 CPUs and discovered 910 unlicensed software products, namely Microsoft’s office tools such as Office 2007, Window XP, Office Enterprise, Window 7; Lac Viet dictionary ( MTD 2002, 2005); Autodesk’s software pieces used specifically graphics designing, such as AutoCAD; Adobe’s pieces such as Acrobat, Photoshop; Symantec’s products such as Antivirus, and others.

The software, as estimated by the owners, is worth VND7 billion. The noteworthy thing is that the inspected enterprises included the ones with big production scale and high number of workers with the products to be exported to many countries. They all understand the Intellectual Property Law, but still committed the copyright infringement in an attempt to seek illegal profits.

Since 2012, under the cooperation copyright protection program run by the Vietnamese relevant agencies, BSA – the software alliance, and the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce, the meetings with hundreds of Taiwanese enterprises were organized, where the latest regulations on the issue were disseminated.

However, some Taiwanese invested enterprises, namely RK Resources, headquartered in Binh Duong province, and Diamond Vietnam in My Phuoc 1 Industrial Zone in the same locality, which both had good financial capability, still have been found as using pirate software.

A report of BSA and INSEAD, a big university, showed that for every one more percent of copyrighted software used, the Vietnamese national economy would have $50 million more. The report also said that the benefits the copyrighted software can bring is as twice higher as the benefits brought by pirate software.

The survey conducted by the organizations has found that every one more percent of copyrighted software would create $87 million worth of GNP, higher than the $37 million to be earned from the same increase in the use of pirate software.

The report also showed that every one more dollar worth of investment in copyrighted software would bring the ROI of $94 in Vietnam. The figure is $9 for pirate software.

Buu Dien